


Astray

by Sproid



Category: due South
Genre: Backstory, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sproid/pseuds/Sproid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark wants to show Ben all kinds of fun, especially the kind that involves kissing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Astray

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of a conversation with Luzula in the comments of her wonderful fic "Collapse of the Wavefunction", in which we briefly discussed Mark's sexuality, and how comfortable he is with that in his teens. This prompted a thought that Mark could be the confident one, well prepared to give a big 'screw you' to anyone who hassled him about his sexuality, and prepared to initiate a relationship with Fraser in a 'lead Fraser astray/show Fraser new things' kind of way. Here is the resulting fic. Thank you to Luzula for encouraging me to write it :D

Their team won the hockey match, of course. Mark’s cry of victory rang out across the pond, and Ben watched with a smile as the rest of the team descended upon him. Ben had set quite a few of the shots up, but Mark was the star of the match, so he hung back as Mark was bombarded with claps on the shoulder, trading them back with one-armed hugs and easy smiles. 

Then he caught sight of Ben, and ducked out of the circle. Moments later, everyone else broke up as well, and the pond was full of colour and noise once more.

“Hey, Ben!” Mark shouted, dodging everyone else with ease as he skated over.

Ben gripped his stick tighter and braced himself for the energetic arrival that was Mark after a match.

With a spray of ice, Mark stopped in front of him. Waving his arms excitedly, he asked, “Did you see that last shot?”

“You were brilliant,” Ben said honestly.

Mark’s face lit up. Then he grabbed Ben’s face with with cold gloves, leaned in, and kissed Ben right on the mouth. 

Ben dropped his stick in shock.

Before Ben had a chance to get around to any other reaction, Mark let go and reached down to pick Ben’s stick up. “Come on,” he said, slinging his arm over Ben’s shoulder as he handed it back. “We’re celebrating with hot chocolate at Linda’s café.”

At the café, they all crowded into adjacent booths. Ben found himself sat across from Mark, which normally he would have liked, but today he didn’t know where to look or what to say. He tried not to spend too much time staring, but didn't manage it very well. What made it worse was that every time Mark caught him at it, he winked and knocked his boot against Ben's, then went back to playing rock-paper-scissors with Greg.

It was alright for him, but Ben couldn't help blushing, and he was trapped between Patrick, who was big, and the wall, which didn't move. All he could do was bury his face in his hot chocolate, hope that no-one else noticed, and try not to think about that brief, confusing kiss or what it meant.

\--

Afterwards, Mark ended up walking home by himself, when usually Ben would walk with him up until the corner where they went different ways.

Sighing, he stuck his hands in his pockets. It probably hadn't been all that smart to kiss Ben out of the blue like that. He'd kind of planned to flirt a bit first, seeing as how he knew that Ben hadn't had a boyfriend or a girlfriend before. But then he'd seen Ben, looking over at him with a smile from just outside the group - and Mark knew that Ben didn't like being crushed in that many people, was alright with getting knocked into during the game but not afterwards – and Mark hadn't even thought about it.

Ben hadn't looked upset or anything though, just really surprised, so Mark hoped he hadn't messed up too badly. He'd been wanting to kiss Ben for a while, and not just because he thought Ben was cute. The thing was, Ben gave a good show of being chatty and not afraid of anything, but underneath that he could be kind of shy and careful, like he wasn't sure he was allowed to have fun. Since he'd met Ben, Mark had made sure he'd had it anyway, and now he really wanted to show Ben that kissing was one of the best kinds of fun.

That kind of depended on Ben being open to the idea though, and that meant not rushing him. So, Mark decided, he was just going to stick with the original plan and flirt with Ben, starting at school on Monday.

\--

Thankfully, Ben didn’t avoid Mark or anything. He looked a bit uncertain when Mark said hi to him in the morning, but he didn’t run away, so Mark figured they were OK.

Flirting with him turned out to need a bit more thinking about though, once Mark realised that he already spent all his lunchtimes with Ben, picked him first to be on his team, and walked home with him after school. 

He tried making suggestive comments, but Ben didn't pick up on most of them, and Mark couldn’t really imagine saying some of the more obvious ones to him. So instead Mark started touching him more often: he hugged Ben in the mornings, nudged his arm when he wanted to point something out, and sat right next to him when they ate their lunch. He even started walking right up against Ben’s side on the way back from school. 

The first time he tried that one, Ben nearly ended up in the road because he kept moving away to give Mark space. That was OK though because it just gave Mark an excuse to put his arm around Ben's shoulder for the rest of the way, under the guise of keeping him on the path so he didn’t get run over.

After a few days of confused looks, Ben just seemed to accept that Mark wanted to be right next to him, and went with it. Every so often Ben would smile at him, a little half shy thing before he launched back into explaining whatever he'd learned from his most recent book. Mark wasn’t sure if that meant that Ben had caught on, but he could definitely stand to see that smile more often.

He'd give it a bit longer for Ben to figure it out, he decided, and then if he didn't get a clue, Mark was just going to have to be a bit more obvious.

\--

For the first few days after Mark kissed him, Ben thought that everything had gone back to normal. Over the weekend, Ben had sat and thought about it, and worked out that Mark had just been caught up in the excitement of the game. He’d probably just kissed him to say thank you for setting up that last shot for him. There was no need for Ben to get his hopes up.

Then Mark started making _comments_. Comments which Ben didn’t know how to respond to, so ignored, and then afterwards kicked himself because he couldn’t stop wondering what might have happened if he’d said something, anything, back. He hadn’t grown up with a peer group like Mark’s though, so exchanges like that were something he didn’t know how to engage with, no matter how much he wanted to.

After a day or two though, Mark stopped. Ben told himself he’d been imagining the suggestive nature of them anyway.

Only it wasn’t so easy to explain away why Mark was now touching Ben more than he usually did. The physical affection had been strange enough initially; when he’d first arrived, Ben hadn’t been used to hugs that weren’t the brief, perfunctory ones from his grandparents, so Mark’s easy handing out of them had taken some getting used to. 

It wasn’t that Ben didn’t want Mark to hug him more often. Quite the opposite, in fact, because Mark was big and warm and smelt nice. He just couldn’t work out why Mark was doing it. 

The only thing Ben could think of was that Mark was flirting, especially when Mark came to sit right next to him at lunchtimes, because Ben had seen him do that with Jenny last year before he asked her out. That couldn’t be right though, because Mark wasn’t being careful about it, and everybody could see them. And surely Mark didn’t like Ben like that anyway? 

If that wasn’t it though, then Ben didn’t know what Mark was up to. It was extremely frustrating.

\--

When Mark asked Ben to go around to his house after hockey practice, it was two weeks since the odd behaviour had begun, and Ben still wasn’t sure what was going on. The tempting tone in Mark’s voice when he said, “My parents are out,” didn’t help Ben make up his mind at all. He went though; Mark’s house was nice, and he liked spending time with Mark, so it would be silly not to go.

Up in Mark’s room, Ben went to sit on the end of Mark’s bed like he always did - Mark had a desk and a chair, but they were always covered in clothes - and Mark kicked stuff out of the way so he could shut the door.

“You were great out there,” Mark said, bouncing on his toes as he wriggled out of his sweater and threw it to join the mess on his chair. He was always fidgety after a game, full of energy when Ben was edging towards tired.

Warm with the compliment, and the fact that Mark looked like he meant it, Ben shook his head in denial anyway. “Not as good as you.”

With a careless shrug, Mark told him, “I’ve been playing longer than you. You’ll get there one day.”

“I will if I keep playing with you,” Ben replied, which made Mark grin at him, like it meant the world to him that Ben thought he was good. That was ridiculous, because Mark _knew_ he was good, everyone did, but it made Ben determined to tell him more often anyway.

Then Mark pulled his shirt off over his head, like it was something he did all the time around Ben. Only it wasn’t, and Ben’s mouth fell open. Then it stayed open because the next thing Mark did was stretch, and Ben hadn’t realised quite how much more muscle he’d gained recently.

Eyes wide open, Ben stared until he realised that he really shouldn’t, and then he dropped his gaze quickly, face hot, chastising himself for looking at his friend like that.

A moment later, the bed dipped as Mark sat down next to him, his arm coming around Ben’s shoulders like he’d been doing so often lately. Even through his own sweater, Ben could feel the heat coming off Mark - or was that his own heat, he wondered, keeping his head down and staring at the floor to stop himself looking at Mark again.

Then Mark leaned in, and murmured in Ben’s ear, “Hey, Ben, wanna make out with me?”

And that was it, Ben had had enough of this, didn’t understand what Mark was doing or why, so he scrambled out from under Mark’s arm and off the bed, moving to stand well away from it.

“What are you doing?” he asked, crossing his arms to try and stop himself shaking. “I mean, I know what you’re doing, but why are you doing it?”

With a shrug, as if it was obvious, Mark said, “Because I want to kiss you.”

Ben wanted to believe that, he really did. “But you like girls!”

“Yeah, Ben. I like boys, too. I’m bisexual. You know, like in that book you had.”

“Oh.” Ben blinked, and couldn’t think of anything else to say for a moment. Then he asked cautiously, because there was still a part of him that couldn’t quite believe what Mark was saying, “This isn’t some kind of dare or something?” 

All of a sudden, Mark looked offended. 

Ben winced. “Sorry. It’s just… you like me?”

Mark rolled his eyes, and the offended look faded. “Yeah, Ben.” Then he leaned back on his hands and looked at Ben, half-challenging, half something else that made his eyes look really dark, and made Ben flush to see. “So?”

Ben couldn’t stop staring again, feeling shivery all over, and like he couldn’t think properly, which must have been why instead of saying _Yes_ , he said, “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Mark sat up, slid off the bed, and walked over to grab his sweater and pulled it back on, while Ben looked miserably down at his boots. Of course Mark didn’t want to kiss someone who hadn’t done it before, not when he’d done it with lots of people. He shouldn’t have said anything, now the chance was gone, and he’d never-

“Hey, Ben.”

With a start, Ben looked up. Mark was leaning against the desk, that strange look gone from his eyes, messy-haired and looking like he always did again, apart from that he licked his lips as he looked at Ben.

Through a dry mouth, Ben asked, “Yes?”

With a grin, Mark said, “Come over here then, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Ben practically knocked Mark over, he was over there so fast. Mark didn’t seem to mind.

\--

It turned out that Ben learned as fast in this as he did everything else, which didn’t surprise Mark at all. By the time his parents got back, they were both hot and messy, even though they’d not even got their shirts off - Mark had seen how startled Ben had been at that, so there was no way he was going to push it - and it was a really good look on Ben.

He was kinda slow to pick up on the other stuff though. The first time after that when Mark came to find him at lunchtime, he got this really worried look on his face, and kept edging away, like Mark wasn’t good enough to be seen with or something. It pissed Mark off, and they nearly had a fight about it after school, squaring up behind the big tree down the road until Ben said, “I just don’t want people giving you trouble, Mark.”

Then Mark got it, and he hit Ben on the shoulder, but only lightly. “I don’t care who knows I’m bi, and I don’t care who knows we’re going out,” he told Ben.

Ben got a stunned, surprised look on his face. “We’re… going out?”

Looking at him, Mark remembered how shocked Ben had looked that first time they'd met, when Mark had handed him a spare pair of skates and dragged him along to the hockey match; how wary Ben had been when Mark said he wanted to make out; both times, like he didn’t quite believe that Mark meant _him_.

So the firm, “Yes,” came out before Mark had even thought about it, and he took a step closer to Ben, about ready to grab him and make sure that Ben knew exactly who Mark meant. Then he stopped, because he should probably ask Ben if he was alright with that, and, wow, he hadn’t expected that to make him nervous.

“I mean, if you want to,” he added. Ben started nodding before Mark had even finished the sentence, so Mark stopped shuffling his feet in the snow, and grabbed him in a hug instead. With neither of them being really steady though, that toppled them both over pretty quickly. They ended up wrestling and laughing in the snow, which turned quickly into kissing each other until the cold got to them. They had to stand up and walk pretty quickly to warm up after that, but it was definitely worth it, because Ben gave Mark a goodbye kiss at the corner this time, rather than the other way around. 

Next lunchtime, Ben let Mark hold his hand, even though they were eating with the other boys on the team. 

They got a few surprised looks, and Patrick said, “So, are you two a thing now?”

“Yeah,” Mark said, and raised his head to look at Patrick head on. He’d been prepared for this, and he wasn’t about to let either of them take any crap from anybody. “You got a problem with that, Patrick?”

Thoughtfully, Patrick put his head to one side, and said after a moment, “Only that I didn’t see it coming. You’re usually kinda obvious, Mark.”

Ben’s dry, “Not to me,” made everyone else crack up, while Ben looked around in confusion. Mark was laughing so hard, he could only squeeze Ben’s hand and hold on until he could draw breath. In the end, Greg got hold of himself first, and patted Ben on the back as he explained that no-one was surprised given that Macy had literally been dangling mistletoe over his head at Christmas, and he hadn’t noticed.

“Oh,” Ben said, sheepish but thankfully not offended. “Well, then.”

“Good thing for me,” Mark added, winking but knocking his knee against Ben’s to tell him he meant it. Ben knocked back with a smile, and shuffled a bit closer.

\--

After that, Ben was a lot less reluctant to do boyfriend-type things with Mark. He was still kinda shy, but Mark quite liked that, the way he’d blush and stammer when Mark suggested something new, but then said - or mumbled - ‘yes’, and made lots of surprised sounds, usually followed by even more really happy ones. 

It was definitely fun to make stick-to-the-rules Benton Fraser go bright red and then drag Mark on top of him, but there was more it than that. Sometimes Ben would look up at him like he wanted something but wasn’t sure if he was allowed to ask for it, and Mark got to be the one who coaxed it out of him with kisses, with hugs, with his fingers rubbing over Ben’s ribs and tickling gently until Ben wriggled, and laughed out whatever his request was.

Even then, sometimes, Ben had to be encouraged that it actually was OK to touch him. Once he lost his hesitation though, often Mark would end up with Ben knelt over him, expression soft and hot every time he touched somewhere that made Mark groan. The look he got when Mark said hoarsely, “Don’t stop”, was one of wonder, and _that_ was what Mark wanted. Ben had never done any of this before, it was all new to him, and Mark wanted to make sure that he knew it was _good_.

\--

In terms of the physical aspects of their relationship, Ben knew that Mark had a lot more experience. He’d been nervous about that at first, but Mark never laughed at him when he didn’t know how to do something, so Ben stopped worrying about it. Sometimes Mark approached things like a challenge, but Ben thought maybe that was because he didn’t know how to do it any other way, and although he seemed to like surprising Ben, they were always nice surprises that made Mark look happy when Ben enjoyed them.

It made it all the better when Ben did something that Mark wasn’t expecting. 

One Saturday, Ben finished his homework early, and his grandparents gave him permission to go to Mark’s house for the rest of the day. When he got there though, Mark was still struggling with his math homework, and had actually cleared off his desk so that he could try and get it done.

“Ms Harper said she’d put me in detention for the rest of the week if I didn’t hand this in on time,” he told Ben, looking up and scrubbing a hand through his hair, looking halfway like he might pull it out in frustration. “So I can’t… y’know. Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Ben said. Mark glared at his maths book, and kicked the wall behind the desk. For a moment, Ben considered things, and then asked, “Can I borrow a book?”

Mark sighed. “Yeah, sure. Bring it back next weekend.”

So Ben shut the door, and picked up the book they were reading for English from Mark’s bookshelf. Then he made his way back over to the desk, cleared a space in the mess on the floor, and sat down next to Mark’s chair with his back against the drawers of the desk.

“Ben? What’re you doing?”

“Keeping you company,” Ben replied. He looked up, and met Mark’s confused look with a smile. “I can leave if I’ll disturb you.”

“No,” Mark said quickly, and bent his head back over his work as if to convince him. Ben started reading, and after a few minutes, Mark reached down to squeeze his shoulder with a quiet, “Thanks, Ben.”

Ben leaned his cheek briefly against Mark’s hand. “Anytime, Mark.” 

He looked up just in time to catch Mark’s half-stunned look at that, and smiled to himself when Mark went back to his work with his frown significantly lessened.

\--

Next week, after Mark hadn’t got detention, they went to the café after school. Outside, Ben determinedly told Mark, “I’ll buy yours today.”

Mark stopped, and looked completely bemused. “What? Why? I can buy my own, you know.”

“I know,” Ben told him. “But I want to. You’re my boyfriend, and boyfriends do nice things for each other, right?”

Slowly, as if he still wasn’t sure what was going on, Mark said, “Yeah. But…”

When Mark didn’t say anything else for a while, Ben started to worry that he’d said the wrong thing. Then Mark looked up with a small smile, and said, “No-one’s bought me a hot chocolate before. I mean, my parents have, but none of my friends, you know?”

So Ben grabbed Mark’s hand, walked in, and bought him a large hot chocolate with extra cream and marshmallows. Behind the counter, Linda looked at them both with that trying-not-to-smile look that adults got when someone younger was doing something cute. Ignoring it, Ben carefully handed Mark the big mug, took his own mug from the counter, and they went and sat at the table in the corner to drink them together.

Mark didn’t say anything, but he kept glancing at Ben over the top of his mug, with a slowly-widening smile. Either the hot chocolate was _really_ hot, or Mark was blushing, so Ben thought probably he had done the right thing after all.

\--

It was sunny outside, but there’d been a fresh coating of snow the day before, so by lunchtime everyone was eager to get outside. Patrick and Greg were organising teams for a snowball fight, which usually Mark would be all for, but today he hung back and pulled on Ben’s arm to keep him away, too. “Wanna make out behind the storage shed?” he murmured in Ben’s ear.

Wide-eyed but curious, Ben looked between the teachers on one side of the playground, and the out-of-the-way shed on the other. Mark could see him weighing up the risks, and he was sure Ben was going to say no, but then Ben turned back to face him and all of a sudden looked like he didn’t care. “Yes,” Ben replied firmly, and let himself be lead them over there, looking over at Mark with a quick little half-nervous, half-excited smile every so often.

They couldn’t really do anything other than kiss, seeing as it was still pretty cold out. Compared to what they’d been getting up to in Mark’s bedroom lately, that was pretty tame, but Mark didn’t care. Ben’s hands were warm on his face, and his face was cold beneath Mark’s palms, their bulky coats stopped them from getting too close, and Mark thought that if all he did this lunchtime was kiss Ben, it’d be the best lunchtime ever.

The crunch of snow alerted them to someone approaching. Eyes snapping open, Mark let Ben go and took a step back, at which point Ben dropped to his knees in the snow. Mark barely had time to hiss out “Ben, what the hell are you doing?” before Mr Jacobs rounded the corner and glared at them both. 

For a moment, all Mark could think was that they were in _so much_ trouble, but then Ben sprang up and whirled around to face Mr Jacobs, snowball in hand and arm drawn back.

“Oh!” Ben said with a note of surprise in his voice that nearly fooled Mark. He lowered his arm, and said contritely. “I’m very sorry, sir. I thought you were someone else.”

Mark couldn’t see Ben’s face, but if it was as convincing as his tone of voice, they might get away with this after all.

Glare fading, Mr Jacobs shook his head. “Fraser, no matter what Smithbauer has told you, it’s far from sportsmanlike to hide behind a shed with a fresh supply of snow, and wait for your opponents to come to you.”

Coming around to Ben’s side, Mark snuck a glance at him, and had to hide a smile as Ben put on a very convincing ashamed face. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“As for you, Smithbauer, perhaps you could think twice about leading your classmates astray in the future?” Mr Jacobs said with a sigh.

Nodding, Mark managed to get himself under control. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Go on with you both,” Mr Jacobs told them, stepping aside and gesturing them out.

Head down, Mark followed Ben out, and they exchanged a quick glance before breaking into a sprint so that they were halfway across the playground, in amongst everyone else before they let out their laughs.

Grinning, Mark told Ben, “That was _brilliant_.” Ben ducked his head with a very happy, slightly smug smile, and Mark reached out to ruffle his hair. “Benton Fraser, lying to a teacher, who would’ve thought it?”

“I didn’t really _lie_ ,” Ben protested, looking up but not moving away from Mark. “I just sort of made it so that we didn’t have to tell the truth.”

“Either way, I’m impressed,” Mark said, and let his hand drop.

Reaching out, Ben grabbed Mark’s hand and drew his arm around his shoulder, then started walking towards where the main snowball fight was happening. “Does that mean you’ll carry on leading me astray?” he asked. His face as he looked up at Mark was innocent, but his voice was distinctly hopeful.

Mark snorted and pulled Ben closer. “I promise, as long as you stick around, I’ll carry on getting you into trouble.”

Hugging Mark back with an arm around his waist, Ben told him, “Then I promise I’ll carry on getting you out of it.”

Mark was about to comment that it hardly seemed fair, but then Ben wriggled away from Mark, raised the hand which still had the snowball in it, and threw it straight at the front of Mark’s coat. Through a shower of snowball parts, Mark watched as Ben danced backwards, daring him with a grin to retaliate.

“Oh, you asked for it,” Mark said, and bent down to form his own snowball. Then he chased after Ben, taking advantage of playground rough-and-tumble rules to tackle him when he caught him, and rubbed snow into his hair when he was down. Beneath him, Ben wriggled and giggled, and got a handful of snow down the back of Mark’s neck in return, and Mark figured that they were probably even after all.


End file.
